


Marathon

by blithelybonny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Cross-Generation Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, Hurt/Comfort, Light Bondage, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4421588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithelybonny/pseuds/blithelybonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco runs because Severus tells him to run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marathon

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to my darling beta and to our fabulous mod!

Sometimes Draco runs because he wakes up in a cold sweat from Severus’s panicked shout urging him to flee. He knows it’s only a dream and also that no amount of running will erase what happened, but he would do anything that Severus commanded him to do.

Obedience is paramount to survival.

He runs until he collapses at the edge of the lake on the outskirts of his family’s property. One hand rests over his eyes, and the other falls back with a muted splash. He could slip under the water and never come up, but Severus would never approve.

 

Draco sharply sucks in a breath, the terror lancing through him like Cruciatus, and grips the table hard. His hands still quiver; he wants to cry out, wants to beg, even, that he not have to watch any longer. She’s dying, she’s dead, he shouldn’t be forced to watch a woman be devoured by a snake at the table where he ate with his family as a child.

But they all enjoy it so much. Draco doesn’t understand why he appears to be the only one who cannot stomach this supposed entertainment. He doesn’t understand why he’s so weak in the face of something he wanted for so long.

The Dark Lord’s eyes are gleeful; Aunt Bellatrix’s gleam with insane joy; around the table Draco looks at them all in turn, sees the blood-lust, sees the joy, the need. He wants to be like them. He should want to know the joy of this torture -- should want to bask in the exquisite pleasure of killing Mudbloods and traitors. All he feels is nauseated. All he wants is to weep.

He could give in. His previous failures are still fresh in the Dark Lord’s mind. It would take only one small comment, one obvious dissension or refusal, and he could end this madness now.

Severus slips a hand beneath the table. Five small points of contact, each fingertip pressed warmly in an imperfect circle around Draco’s knee-cap. Draco exhales slowly, raises his knee, and Severus flattens his hand against the bone.

 

Sometimes Draco runs because the pounding of the soles of his trainers against the path from the Manor’s doors, out into the thick surrounding woods, is the only thing that drowns out the sound of the screams in his head.

He had never been a runner before all this; as a pure-blood wizard of the highest pedigree, he never had cause or need to travel by non-magical transportation. His father wouldn’t hear of it either. Running is an inelegant, dirty business made for commoners, criminals and cowards, and Malfoys are none of these things.

Malfoys are all of these things.

 

Draco knows he’s going to hear Rowle’s screams forever. He wonders where he dredged up all the hate necessary to successfully cast such a powerful, painful curse, because he’s never liked pain. He never liked feeling it and he never really liked inflicting it.

Except against Potter, of course. Breaking Potter’s nose had been the highlight of his life.

Perhaps that’s where the hate came from then -- he must have twisted Rowle’s face into Potter’s in his imagination, searing that hideous lightning bolt scar between Rowle’s eyes and letting go with the fury he’s always felt about Potter since the moment Potter rejected his friendship.

Only Draco doesn’t hate Potter that much anymore. He doesn’t like him, but he doesn’t hate him either. He doesn’t actually know what he feels about Potter.

As he grips the edge of the marble table-top where Severus does his nastiest potions work, head tipped forward, Draco decides that even if he doesn’t hate Harry Potter anymore and he certainly doesn’t hate Thorfinn Rowle enough to cast a Cruciatus Curse, there must be a pocket of hatred in his heart that motivates him to keep moving forward. Something must be pushing him to succeed, even when he’s on the brink of failure.

Severus lays a hand over Draco’s exposed neck. His hand is so warm -- Draco doesn’t understand how when everything else about him is so cold -- and he kneads the uppermost knob of Draco’s spine with his thumb until Draco’s knees buckle in relief.

 

Sometimes Draco runs because he needs to hide, and he knows that the Dark Lord isn’t the sort to go chasing. He’s rather the sort who allows guilt to call back his lapsed followers. Draco isn’t lapsed, of course, but sometimes he makes mistakes.

He tears across the grounds until his lungs feel fit to burst, and then he runs some more. He pushes himself at a bruising pace until his muscles scream and sweat blurs his vision.

It’s alright to need a little time away from the cause. It’s fine to hide sometimes, as long as no one knows.

 

Draco nearly collapses as soon as he reaches Severus’s chambers. The pain of Cruciatus still feels as fresh now as it had nearly two hours ago when he’d been at the Dark Lord’s feet, begging for and receiving no mercy. 

He drops to his knees and pitches forward to press his palms flat against the stone, letting himself feel the magic that imbues the foundation of his family home. It flutters against him like a caress, and he wants to lean into it. His heart aches already with the need to perform magic, but he daren’t cast anything yet. He’d never known that he could feel the loss of a bit of hawthorn wood so profoundly; it’s almost as if he’s lost a limb. His magic feels untamed, unfocused without it.

A chair across the room creaks as Severus sits forward. His dark eyes glitter in the firelight, and he steeples his fingers beneath his chin.

He knows. Severus must know that Draco looked into Harry Potter’s eyes and chose to lie, rather than to accept the glory that awaited him. Severus doesn’t know why, though, because Draco hardly knows why he did it either; only that he did.

Severus extends a hand and crooks a finger, beckoning. A shiver wracks Draco’s body, but he goes forward anyway. He crawls across the room and sits back on his heels at Severus’s feet. Head bowed, he crosses his wrists behind his arse, and the invisible bonds wrap like silk around them.

 

Sometimes Draco runs because it makes him feel so alive. His heart pounds, beating out a steady, rapid rhythm, and his lungs expand and contract as he drags in and pants out breath. His legs carry him forward, the joints, muscles and tendons all toiling together. His brain, in command of it all, urges him on, directs his path through the forest, around the grounds, along the lake.

He sees nothing but the horizon. Students pass, Professors observe, but Draco sees nothing, feels nothing except the work of his body.

Everything in tandem, everything for the singular purpose of motion.

 

Draco focuses on the light that gleams off Severus’s perfectly polished boots until Severus tips up his chin with just his fore and middle-finger. His lips part to speak, but at the quick jerk of Severus’s head, he shuts his mouth again. No need to say anything, then -- they don’t have time for words anymore.

Severus follows the line of Draco’s jaw with his knuckles, down Draco’s neck, and then clamps his fingers around the joining of Draco’s neck and shoulders. Draco buckles easily and drops to his knees. He cannot help the ironic smile that curves his lips: he’s always hated to kneel, but now it is the only position that feels comfortable. But of course, that’s more the location.

It won’t be long now, Draco knows. The urgency has reached a fever pitch in the castle. He can almost feel Potter and his friends closing in, the Dark Lord desperate and hot on their trail.

The familiar crackling tension starts to gather in his chest, but Severus easily pushes it away, as Draco tips his head up and lets his eyes fall closed. Severus traces the curve of his lip, travels up over his nose and flutters over his eyelids. He breathes in and out carefully, feeling his lungs contract and expand in his chest. His heart-rate slows and he relaxes.

He wonders if he’ll ever know what Severus truly stands for in all of this. Is Severus a good man or a bad man? Does it matter?

 

Sometimes Draco runs because there’s nothing to stand still for.

To stand still now, to remain motionless, would mean that the thoughts and feelings that rise and swell like the tide will take him down. Draco doesn’t want to be taken down. Not now. Not yet.

Not anymore.

He bounces on the balls of his feet and stretches his arms up over his head. He puts one foot in front of the other, faster and faster, he picks up the pace until he’s running. Until he’s moving away. Until he’s flying down the path -- flying away from what he lacks.

**Author's Note:**

> Please show your appreciation for the author here, or on [LIVEJOURNAL](http://hp-crossgenfest.livejournal.com/18127.html)! ♥


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